1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the field of computer database systems, and more particularly relates to a system and method for translating and communicating between database systems.
2. Description of Related Art
The explosive growth of the World-Wide-Web, eCommerce, and networks (extranets) between enterprises has led to an increased demand and opportunity for connecting the backend databases of some enterprises to exchange information amongst themselves. A typical example includes a particular enterprise using the services of two other solutions and service-oriented organizations. The servicing organizations might need to have some of their networks and databases shared between them or alternatively bridged to be able to provide a good level of service to the serviced enterprise in some common area, for example IT related problem management. One of the servicing organizations might need to let the other servicing organization know the status of a particular problem that the serviced enterprise may have. Or one of the servicing organizations may want to update the other on some work that it may have performed and may be of interest to the other organization about a problem that the two might be involved with. If the servicing organizations would rather not give each other direct access to their resources then such situations give rise to the need for effectively bridging the resources, like backend request or problem management systems.
Other problem management systems have been bridged in the past using architecture schemes with a low level of versatility. Whenever a change occurs on one side of the system, the need to update underlying code propagates throughout the entire system. This adds expense and downtime to the system. Also, the entire system must be functional in order for the system to operate. If one side goes down, the whole system is inoperable, as both sides must be running in order to facilitate a smooth, uninterrupted transfer. This could possibly create stress on the relationship between organizations.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above, and particularly for a bridging system to provide continuous operation between the end database systems with versatility to be able to handle different real life situations.